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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23758420">Raphzilla</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bramblemask973/pseuds/Bramblemask973'>Bramblemask973</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Casey gets tossed around like a ragdoll, Donnie gets 0 sleep, In which Raph has a very bad day, Mutation, and generally shit just happens, double mutation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:14:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23758420</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bramblemask973/pseuds/Bramblemask973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Adaptability is a ninja's greatest asset. Expect the unexpected, be prepared to be surprised, never have your plans set in stone. Find every possible outcome.<br/>Unfortunately its really hard to prepare for anything when your entire family is out of the ordinary. Who really looks at their day and thinks 'Hm, I wonder if I'm going to end up chasing one of my brothers through the city today while he tries to kill his best friend and trashes New York in the meantime?'<br/>He really should have slept in.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Totally Not Foreshadowing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollykittykat/gifts">mollykittykat</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>because she needs the chaos.<br/>In Which Raphael Deals With Some Shit and Donnie Fixes It.<br/>As per usual.<br/>By Jeli and Maya.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“You really don’t have to be here. I can finish this up on my own.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. But if I leave, you’re gonna end up staying awake all night working on it, and then I’m gonna have a real boring time beating your shell in training tomorrow.” Raph reaches over with his free hand, giving Donnie’s shoulder a shove. Not very hard, just enough to rock him and take the sting out of his tone. The other hand is currently occupied by Chompy; the little space tortoise is fast asleep, and doesn’t seem to be bothered in any way by the commotion. He’s cradled carefully in Raphael’s palm,  letting go of tiny smokey snores while the two brothers go back and forth. “So get to it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Donatello takes the shove in good nature, giving a mild snicker and a half-hearted swat in return before his attention shifts back to the task at hand. Staying up late is definitely not out of the ordinary for him. It’s practically routine. Finish patrol, vanish into the lab, work on some project or another for the night, get an hour or two of proper sleep, suck back a few cups of coffee and then jump into training for the day. That’s definitely been Donatello’s constant for the last week or so, but it may have started leaking into his enthusiasm for their martial arts. Which has led to the intervention of sorts in the form of the hotheaded brother sitting on his desk and berating him. Not the easiest way to get work done by any means, but the company is nice. However snarky it is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought training was for honing our skills in battle, and not for trying to bury each other into the mats,” Donnie returns dryly. He fixes the slide on his microscope and settles back into it, his hands adjusting the focus without really needing to think about it. Multitasking is one of Donnie’s stronger suits - Raph can’t count how many times he’ll be explaining a plan or even just chatting with someone and his hands will be working. It gets really freaky when it involves a blowtorch, because Donnie won’t even be watching what he’s doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not honing any skills if you’re asleep on your feet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d consider that a skill.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It's totally </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>a skill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Being able to balance on your feet and stay upright while your brain is shut down and recharging?” It’s a wonder Donnie’s eyes don’t just attach to the microscope. One day he’ll probably invent little microscope glasses. Won’t even need to bring samples home then. Raph raises a brow as the genius continues, half of his attention on the slide he’s examining, and half on the friendly argument. “That’s not something anyone’s born with. That kind of discipline is hard to train into someone. It's totally a skill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, alright.” He’s got him there. Raph shakes his head with an eye roll, leaning back onto his palm as he glances around the lab. Donnie’s probably got seven or eight projects going on in here. There’s a half-repaired bit of Metalhead, something that looks like an upgraded smoke grenade, three toasters in a pile that all have the unfortunate skeletal appearance of being massacred for parts. Said parts have all been brought over to another station, which is occupied by not only the old TV remote but a pretty sad looking GameCube. The console has a kunai sticking out of it, and Raph swiftly pulls his gaze away to look around at everything else instead. Totally didn’t have anything to do with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It always makes him wonder how Donnie gets so much stuff done in here. The place is never clean, nor is it ever empty. There's a consistent cluttered feel to the whole lab, and yet Donnie </span>
  <em>
    <span>somehow </span>
  </em>
  <span>knows where everything is. Anyone could come in and ask for something and Donnie would shove his hand into a pile of parts and pull out exactly what they need. He manages to finish a project every few nights. Most are small; repairing remotes, game consoles, toasters. The occasional television. Some are more complex and take time to complete - or on the other hand, are constantly being upgraded so they are never really finished. As soon as one project stops, another starts, with Donatello left in some kind of never-ending spiral between mad scientist and mechanic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raphael will never understand how he does it. He really doesn't want to try.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’re you lookin’ at anyway?” Hah. That got his attention. Burgundy eyes snap up from the eyepiece of the microscope and Raph can read the confusion on his face. It’s very satisfying to catch his brother off guard, though after another second or two of silence, his satisfaction begins to drip away into self-consciousness. Raph scowls, narrowing his eyes. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re never interested in my projects unless they blow something up,” Donnie replies slowly. Fair enough. Most of Donnie’s projects are too intricate and involve far too many big words for Raph’s liking, so he tries to ignore much of the mumbo-jumbo. Eventually, Donnie stopped really explaining it to him. So for him to ask for it, yeah, guess he deserves a bit of suspicion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Humor me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The darkening scales over Donnie’s face catches Raph’s attention more than the silence that follows. What bothers him more is when Donnie actively turns his face away, refusing to look him in the eye. He doesn’t want to tell him. That’s weird. Donnie usually jumps at the chance to dive into a far too complicated sciencey lecture. It really isn’t like him to avoid one unless…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, unless he’s doing something he shouldn’t be or it’s embarrassing. Unfortunately for Donatello, Raphael is incredibly interested in both of those options. If it's something he shouldn’t be doing then it is a wonderful reminder that Raphael isn’t the only rebel in the family. And if it's embarrassing, then it's fuel for when he needs something later on. Win-win. Chompy is placed on the desk beside Raph with utmost care as to not wake him. Donnie’s shoulder is grabbed in no such way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it?” He tries his best to keep the excitement from his voice. He fails. He said it didn’t explode - actually, he didn’t say that. It might still explode. Which could still be really cool. Another option pops into mind and the brief moment of interest is back into wariness, green eyes narrowing once more. “You’d better not be messing around with government stuff again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! Well -- not this time. This isn’t anything like that. And I can’t hack the CIA website from my microscope.” You can pinpoint the exact second that it registers as an option for a new project, and Raph does his sorrowful duty of swatting the idea out of the back of Donnie’s head. He doesn’t need to attach a computer to his microscope when he’s got a computer in literally everything else. “Ow!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So if it’s not illegal and it doesn’t blow up, what is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s that </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> again. Donnie won’t actually look at him but he can read the expression on his face all the same. Raph ponders for a moment and then decides he doesn’t like it. It makes him wary and uncomfortable, like when he’s the focus of a lecture from Splinter about manners or his anger issues. While he’s brainstorming on how to change it, Donnie answers so softly that it takes him a second to register that he’s actually spoken, and another to realize what he’s said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“..What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since creating the retromutagen, we’ve had a lot of close calls. Too many.” Donnie sighs and leans back in his chair, all of the exhaustion from working for so long showing with how his shoulders slump. He tugs his mask down to hang around his neck and Raph can finally see the dark spots under his eyes a moment before the scarred fingers reach up to rub at them. Donatello is </span>
  <em>
    <span>spent</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he’s still working. Still pushing at it. Raphael knew he was tired, but he didn’t expect it to show so plainly on his face. How hadn’t he noticed before? “It’s only a matter of time before one of us gets hit with either the retromutagen or the normal stuff, and I want to make sure that I can fix both problems.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh. Such a stupid response. Try for something better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, if we get hit with normal mutagen, at least it's easy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows that’s a worse response as soon as it comes out of his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But it’s not!” Donatello’s hand hits the table, and Raph scoops Chompy back up into his arms as the alien wakes up with a squeak. Donnie continues after a moment of pause, letting Raph soothe Chompy until he quiets down in his hands. “We’re already mutated. If we get hit with retromutagen, and that’s even if we did technically mutate a second time, the likelihood of it turning us all the way back into normal turtles is pretty much one hundred percent. Which doesn’t solve the initial problem. But it’s really hard to tell a chemical compound ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, that’s fine, you can stop halfway.’</span>
  </em>
  <span> It doesn’t work like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raph doesn’t even know where to start. So he keeps his mouth shut, making sure he’s actually focused on what Donnie’s saying. His brother is worked up, and somehow it feels like this isn’t just fatigue talking. Donnie lets his hand fall again and then reaches over to his desk drawer, rummaging in it and pulling out one of his journals. The cover is green and has several scorch marks on it, but Donnie opens it before he can read the front cover. The page he opens is full of calculations that Raph’s eyes just blur over; there’s no way he’s able to even begin to understand what all of it means, so he doesn’t try to. He just lets Donnie keep rambling, a pen suddenly in his brother’s hand and continuing the page as he talks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I need to figure out a way to either a) make a retromutagen that ignores our specific genetic code so that it doesn’t turn us back in the first place or b) make a mutagen that takes our genetic code and rebuilds it exactly as it was before. We don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>any of Splinter’s human DNA to turn us back if we get unmutated. The only way to do that is to create it artificially or program the mutagen to turn us back into </span>
  <em>
    <span>us</span>
  </em>
  <span> but it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard</span>
  </em>
  <span> and very time-consuming and I barely know where to start. And if I make a retromutagen that ignores our DNA, then if we </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> get double mutated, then I don’t have any way to get us back to normal at all. It’s a problem either way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All Raph can do is stay quiet for a few seconds, trying to process what his brother is saying. It seems like they’re back to their usual argument; Donnie’s working himself into the ground because he’s worrying for their safety. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Although last time, they had Splinter, and last time it was just a matter of Donnie learning medicine. The entirety of human </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> veterinary medicine. Which he did, with some intervening from Leo and April so he slept in the meantime, but he did learn it. Donnie can learn anything. That’s a fact that Raph will stand by until the day he dies. But if the science isn’t there for it… there’s only so much that Donnie can </span>
  <em>
    <span>create.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Unless they find someone who knows more about the mutagen than they do and will actively share it with them, then Donnie’s got to figure it out on his own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally Raphael settles on putting Chompy onto his lap, stroking over his chin. His turn to avoid looking Donnie in the eye now. He’s going to start talking and he isn’t sure it’s going to get him anywhere, but it’s worth a shot if it makes him feel any better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not any kind of sciencey type, so I really don’t know how to help you with any of that. But I know enough to say that lack of sleep isn’t going to help you figure it out any faster.” Raph glances over at him, raising a brow as Donnie gives him an annoyed look. They’ve told him he needs to sleep more times than there are scales on his body, and its understandable that he’s tired of it. But Raph pushes on, returning the look. “It’s true. I might sound like Leo, but look at how you’re doing in normal training. You’re barely functioning. You’re missing simple steps in your katas. You’re clumsy. There’s no way that’s any different in here. How are you supposed to figure out detailed scientific formulas if you’ve been scribbling nonsense on that page for five minutes without even realizing it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hah. Got you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Donnie’s eyes snap down to the journal. Sure enough, his calculations and notes were slowly turning into him writing what he was trying to say, and at the end of it his writing wasn’t even legible. The dawning look of defeat on his brother’s face is pretty nice. For once, Raph’s got the upper hand on the genius, and he’s not about to let it go. Donnie glances over the microscope and doesn’t say a word, finally reaching around to turn off the light. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He barely gets a chance to turn off the switch before his feet are scooped off of the ground.</span>
</p><p><span>“</span><em><span>Hgrk--</span></em> <b>Raphael</b><span>, put me down! I can go on my own!”</span></p><p>
  <span>“Nah.” Raph swings Donnie around so that his brother is draped upside down over his shell, his knees bending over his shoulders so he can hold his ankles and keep him there. It’s a position easy enough to get out of, but it really speaks volumes of how tired Donnie is when he makes no effort. Instead the genius lets his arms flop to the floor in defeat, muttering complaints in Japanese.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey! There are children in the room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m pretty sure Chompy is older than all of us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>teach him bad things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raph glances down just as Donnie turns his head and gives him a strange look. Almost like the one he’d put on when Raphael first asked what he was up to, like he’s trying to figure him out. That twisting feeling in his gut is starting up again, so Raph gives Donnie a bit of a bounce to adjust his grip, breaking the eye contact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t think too hard on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, Chompy. Time for bed.” Chompy toddles his way up onto one of Donnie’s trailing palms and sits, trilling in delight as Raph starts out of the lab. Raph really should get a picture of this, Mikey would love it. But instead, he continues dragging Donnie to the bedrooms, Chompy enjoys his turtle-palm-carpet-ride and Donnie gives a long-suffering sigh.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. So Much For Sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s falling. He can’t remember how he started falling, but he knows he is now, and he’s trying his best to keep from getting pummeled on all sides as he does. Things are crashing down with him and bumping into him mid-air. Empty mutagen canisters, his broken drum set, shards of glass from shattered microscope slides. One of the pieces flies out of nowhere and slices through the back of his hand, sending blinding pain up his whole arm. Raph lets go of a hiss and curls around the injury, willing the burn to go away. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It just grows. It spreads through his skin and his muscle up his arm, up his shoulder, reaching through his shell for his other side. Every muscle in his back seizes as one. It feels like he’s being electrified all over again, only this time it’s got a burning edge to it that isn’t familiar. New pain comes along as a cymbal hits him in the head - the ringing echoes through the night like a bell, until the waves are dampened by his blanket draping the darkness around him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Raph hits the ground.The pain breaks from his body, and he scrambles to push the blanket off of his face so he can inspect the wound on his hand. He needs to get home. There’s too much debris out here, he doesn’t need this getting any worse and he </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>definitely</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> doesn’t need it getting infected, Leo would have his shell--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His hand is massive. Huge claws pierce the air from his fingertips, and scales have mottled themselves into spikes rippling up his arm. No longer that deep emerald green but instead a sickly blue, with a strange oil slick texture to it. Black wraps have been torn where they were placed around his now spiked knuckles; his claws extend as he tenses up, stumbling a step or two back in surprise. His feet look the same, just big. Clumsy. There is no longer any kind of ninja-like grace to this body. It’s all strength. All anger. It rises like a wave, coming from his belly, and a roar bellows out from his jaws. One he’s heard before. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A flash of green catches his eye and Raph snaps his gaze up to Mikey’s round face. When did Mikey get here? Why is he smiling, this is nothing to smile about -- The gentle grin is quickly broken into panic a moment before the first blow of his arm hits him in the head. His little brother slams into the ground and a sickening crack breaks the air, but it doesn’t stop him from reaching for a second blow.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Slash.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This is Slash. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>He</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> is Slash.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His hand swings out again, claws reaching for the freckled face, tearing a new hole in the mask that won’t be very useful unless Michelangelo decides to grow a third eye on the back of his head. No sound comes from his brother, just the echoes of his body breaking as he’s kicked away. Raph snarls, clenching the mask in his hand, but it hardens. Mikey vanishes into the dark once he looks at his hand, the orange mask replaced with a glowing orange glass container. A lightbulb--?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“I’ll fix it.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The bulb explodes into a massive blinding light, thickening into droplets that rain over his face. A new spark of pain this time, still from the same hand, and his body shifts as he loses his balance. Once again the rooftop falls away as he twists and convulses through the air, screeching at nothing. The sounds coming from his throat aren’t his. They don’t sound anything like him! This isn’t happening! He isn’t like this!</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The world of colors around him slams to a halt. Raphael opens his eyes. He’s much closer to the ground this time, and everything is far too big. He tries to lift a hand to look at it again but it won’t turn the way he wants it to, he can’t get it to shift around. It’s like his arm is ten times heavier, and his joints have lost all of their flexibility. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Someone else’s hands wrap around his shell - too big, way too big, and he’s being lifted way too fast, he’s going to get dizzy --</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“I guess there’s no way for us to fix it. He’ll just have to live like this from now on.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Confusion ricochets through his mind as he’s off of the ground and placed in a small glass box. There’s a bowl of water and a little heat lamp and a plate, and someone’s hand puts a leaf on it. A lettuce leaf. Crisp and green, fresh from the plant -- he doesn’t want this! Raph backs away on legs like posts and bumps into the glass, and he turns, and it's just two beady black eyes staring wordlessly back at him--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well. Beady purple eyes, anyway, whose face happens to be drooling all over his snout.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph groans and reaches up to wipe Chompy’s spit away, blinking a few times to try and ward off the lasting clutches of his dreams. He’s no stranger to nightmares, none of them are, and it’s definitely not the worst he’s had. Even though it is enough to bother him, by the time he sits up and rubs the alien spit off of his face with the corner of his bedsheet, he’s rubbed away most of the details. All that remains when he opens his eyes properly is that vaguely disturbed sensation in his gut, and the urge to look down at his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’re perfectly normal turtle hands. Massive. Three fingers. Calluses all over his palms. Scars everywhere else. The deep green hue that spreads up his arm to the rest of his body, speckled here and there with darker marks which are completely due to his coloring, and for once not due to any kind of bodily trauma. The only kind of claws he has are short and blunt, not sharp enough to do any damage unless he dug in. They had been sharp at one point. He used to break them off so often that he doesn’t bother with it anymore. Good for prodding brothers in the forehead without causing damage. His hands are built for hard work and violence, showing their impressive history through fading tears between the scales. Completely ordinary ninja hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only thing out of the ordinary is a mark on the back of his right, which is fresh and still oozing onto his blanket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What the hell--?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A quick glance around tells him the culprit. He may not keep his claws sharp, but his shuriken certainly are, and he’s had the misfortune of leaving one on his dresser without a cover on it. There’s some blood dotted around it, and Raph’s more annoyed about it than anything else. It’s his own fault, it probably bred most of the nonsense his dreams had come up with, and now he has to clean up his hand, his dresser </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> his bedsheets before breakfast. Stupid. Why didn’t he just put it away with the rest of them like he usually does? He didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> to have it laying around like a discarded bookmark, waiting for him to flail around in his sleep and slice--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chompy’s worried chitter snaps his thought train clean off of the rails. Raph turns his head, looking down at him, and the first smile of the day breaks over his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m alright. Good morning.” Raph rubs the tortoise’s head with a bit of a rumble and gets a trill in return. He waits patiently while Chompy moves off of his lap before he gets up, taking the blanket with him. It's a good thing his blanket is red. The cut isn’t deep by any means, but it’s on his hand and hands like to bleed. Which, naturally, means it got everywhere while he was squirming around in his sleep. “If you breathed water instead of fire, I’d be able to wash this out without even having to leave the room.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But all Chompy can do is breathe fire, so that wouldn’t solve any of his problems. Raph bundles his blanket up in his arms and goes to set it by the door. Pauses, looks back to Chompy on the bed. Chompy’s tail starts wagging as soon as he does, and Raph knows he’d do it if he asked, but he really doesn’t want to have to go get a new blanket today…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nah. As cool as it would look, setting off the fire alarm at 7am is going to make his day a lot worse than just tossing it in the wash. “We’ll try that another time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Blankets ready to go, Raph grabs a half empty water bottle and a towel and starts wiping off his dresser, putting his gear on as he goes. He makes sure the shuriken are </span>
  <em>
    <span>properly stowed</span>
  </em>
  <span> this time before putting his belt on. Once his mask is tied around his face, Raph sits back down onto his mattress, wiping off his hand so that he can wrap it up. Nobody will notice that his wrapping goes a little further back today, and even if they do, he can just say he messed up a bit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Messed up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Green eyes flick up to his drums and lock onto a dent on one of the cymbals. It’s not something he thinks about often, but after everything Donnie said yesterday, and his dreams, it’s hard not to let his mind wander. If he hadn’t left that canister in here, and hadn’t left him alone with it, that cymbal would never have fallen and gotten dented in the first place. It wouldn’t have ever crashed in a flurry of blankets and glass, and he would never have had to rebuild the whole kit from when it had come apart, and he would never have lost--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A gentle stroke over the cut brings a fresh wave of stinging from the torn skin, yet it's enough to snap his mind out of the whirlpool that threatened to bring him under. Chompy squeaks at him, his tail giving another lash. He resumes licking the cut. Probably not the best thing to clean it with, but the action makes Raphael smile. If he’d never done all of that, he would never have ended up with a tiny fire-breathing space tortoise sitting on his bed cleaning his wounds either, so. It didn’t turn out all bad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks, buddy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hand wrapped, gear on, tighten his mask again -- oh for Pete’s sake -- untie mask, </span>
  <em>
    <span>retie</span>
  </em>
  <span> mask, double knot it so that it stops loosening, pocket his sai and put Chompy on a shoulder and he is ready to go. He’s gonna throttle Donnie for putting all that stuff in his head, but that can wait until training when he won’t get in trouble for throwing him halfway across the room. Besides. Donnie doesn’t actually mean it. He’d fix it, he’d fix anything. It’s not like Donnie knows it bothers him anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It does bother him. It really bothers him. The idea of one of them getting thrown into that mess and not knowing if they’d be able to get out of it makes him feel sick. The idea of one of them being unable to do </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> that makes them even remotely human ever again? No walking around, no junk food, no laughing, no friends? That’s torture. He’d rather be thrown into seven vats of mutagen and turned into a cockroach-slug-chicken-thing before he turns into a normal turtle. No way, no sir. Not going to happen. You’d better take him out now because if he can’t even hit something--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chompy, once again, breaks him out of his spiral with a head bump to the cheek. Raph realizes he’s been standing in front of the door with his blankets bundled in his arms for a minute or so, unmoving. A quick shake of the head helps to clear his thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oy,” Raph mutters, running a hand over his skull. “Gonna be one of these days.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Bonding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bonding begins in more ways than one.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Apparently dragging his brother to bed got the desired effect, because Donatello is showing no sign of fatigue in his attacks today. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Woah!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph dives into a roll to avoid the oncoming bō staff to the face, feeling the wood scrape over his shell as he dodges it. Man. You’d think after giving the guy a pep talk, he’d be a lot nicer about swinging a pole at your skull. Instead this feels like Donnie’s trying to break every other pep talk out of his head and onto the floor. Props for making a comeback in training, though. Now Raph just has to make sure that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> doesn’t look like he’s been slacking. And, more importantly, not get smacked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If Donnie’s like this on one night of good sleep, imagine what he’d be like if he slept well all the time.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mm. That’s actually an interesting thought. He marks it away to tell Mikey about later and comes out of his dive roll onto his toes, pushing off of the mats to lunge back at his brother. Donatello has the upper hand if he can keep Raphael a few feet away. All Raph has to do is try and get in close, where his short stature and sai take the advantage for his own. It’s easier said than done, because as soon as the thought goes through his mind, he can see the way Donnie’s eyes narrow as he realizes the same thing. The lunge for Donnie’s legs comes up short as the staff is brought between them, though it doesn’t stop Raph from wrapping a sai around it and using it as leverage to throw Donnie over his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Across the dojo, Leonardo and Michelangelo are going through training of their own. Not traditional sparring. Pressure points. Of course, Leo already knows most is his and being the perfectionist of the four, he’s memorized them and works hard at the ones he hasn’t quite got. So he’s the unfortunate guinea turtle, doing his best to keep a straight face as he talks Mikey through each point, what affects what, including when to use them. Raph can spot out of the corner of his eye when Mikey gets the right site; Leo’s eyes narrow slightly, his finger twitches, and his muscles stiffen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They don’t even move an inch as Donnie comes worryingly close to them. He twists his arm and twirls his staff above his head so that it doesn’t hit either of the two, bringing it back around in front. His eyes stay focused on Raph the whole time. It really tells how much he’s keeping his concentration. Maybe it's because he thinks that if he does bad in training, Raph will drag him out of the lab again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph’s pretty sure it’s only because he’s charging Donnie like he’s out to get him, and Donnie doesn’t want to be caught off guard by a very heavy turtle ramming into him like a truck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a good choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A half hour later and the four of them have somehow ended up in a pile on the dojo floor, grappling and wrestling with each other in some crazy free for all. Raph’s grin widens as Mikey’s hand shoves his face out of the way, a laugh coming from his chest when he turns to heave his little brother into Donnie’s plastron. There had been something that went unplanned - apparently Leo didn’t account for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Donnie</span>
  </em>
  <span> being the one to throw Raph across the dojo - and the hothead had ended up crashing into the other two. That started up a bit of a yelling match, which led to Raph tackling Leo, and then Mikey tackled Raph, and then somewhere in the middle Donnie just shrugged, tossed his bō to the floor and jumped right in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, alright, </span>
  <em>
    <span>yame!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Leo’s barely holding down laughter as he gives the call, and it finally breaks out a second later when Raph’s heel connects with his side. He’s doing his best to squirm away from Mikey, but the first command doesn’t seem to register with any of them. “Ow-- Donnie, I said -- </span>
  <em>
    <span>quit it!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, right.” Donnie stops twisting Leo’s arm behind his back and straightens up, helping the leader onto his feet instead. They’re all up and about within a moment or two, the remnants of their tussle coming out in hitching breaths and snickering. More often than not do their training sessions end in some kind of wrestling match. Leo rolls his eyes and gives a shake of his head, nodding for the entrance of the dojo once the others are on their feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s call it a day before someone gets hurt. April should be here soon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So what, she gets to skip training and then just swings by for the afterparty? That doesn’t sound very responsible.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She had a job interview. I chart that under a </span>
  <em>
    <span>viable excuse</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Raph.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t be if it was me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s cause nobody would even consider hiring you in the first place, and not because you’re green.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who needs money anyway?” Raph shrugs, heading for the archway. “We get along fine without it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We also reuse everyone else’s junk,” Donnie points out as he comes up beside him, flipping his bō around to rest on his shell. “It’d be nice to get some new things for a change. Something that I don’t have to build for everyone else out of junkyard scraps. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love building things out of junkyard scraps, but it’d be nice to have fresh materials. I would </span>
  <em>
    <span>kill</span>
  </em>
  <span> for some wiring that isn’t ripped out of some old broken machine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, well.” Raph gives Donnie’s shell a pat, leaning down to scoop Chompy up into his arms from the edge of the dojo. It’s hard to keep a hold on him - he squirms around so much from excitement that Raph has to wrap his arms around to keep him from falling. “Chompy, easy -- One day we’ll find you a New Inventor’s Masterkit or something. Like one of those baking kits Mikey gets. All ingredients included, ‘cept this time it’s machine parts.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph, I highly doubt that they make things like that. This isn’t Lego, this is highly advanced technology.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lego can be highly advanced. I see the stuff nerds make.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph pretends he doesn’t see the eyeroll, making his way towards the pit. A hand on his arm stops him, and he looks back up to Donnie. The further banter he expected doesn’t come, and instead Donnie just nods towards his lab.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Speaking of nerd stuff, I need to ask you about something. C’mon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Absolutely not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lack of unbridled emotion in his voice is unnerving, especially to himself. Even as his hand begins to shiver and his heart starts to pound a little harder in his chest, Raph manages to keep his voice steady. Any other time he would have lost it, exploded into some yelling match with Donnie at the first inclination, but Chompy has fallen asleep in his hands and he is determined not to wake him up. He’s not going to ruin his nap for something as </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid</span>
  </em>
  <span> as the request his brother had just asked of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t happening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stubbornness runs deep within the four of them; they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t resilient. Unfortunately, the only one that rivals Raph in the area is Donnie. Where Leo or Mikey may have backed off as soon as he’d shown any sign of walling off the proposition, Don takes it as a challenge, or an opportunity to help his brother learn something. This is the kid that builds heavy machinery for fun, and learns college level sciences just for the hell of it. Raph may be unyielding, but Donnie is not one to stop until he finds a way around it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raphael, please, be reasonable.” Donnie’s doing his best to keep his voice level as well, probably hoping that the lack of tension would soothe Raph’s temper before it rises. He reaches over to his desk while he speaks, turning his Bunsen burner onto low and letting it heat up. “It’s not like I’m asking to m--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I said no!” Oh, whoops. So much for cool and collected. Raph shoots a look at Chompy, but he’s still fast asleep. Good. Shaking his head and taking a step back, he forces himself to lower his voice. “You’re not putting that stuff anywhere near him or any bit of him. I’m not having it, it’s not happening, end of conversation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It isn’t going to go anywhere near him,” Donatello plows on before Raphael can interrupt him again, reaching for a vial on his table. “All I am asking for - and I mean this is it, I won’t ask for anything else - is a cell sample. I just want to see how Chompy’s alien DNA reacts with the mutagen. It might help me figure out how to use it properly; it might stabilize it, or cause unseen side effects, or it might negate the properties of the mutagen entirely. He could even be immune, but I’m not going to know that unless I test it. All I need to do that is a live cell sample.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he’s got to poke him with a needle. That still doesn’t fare well with Raph. That still involves hurting him, and Raph doesn’t want to have to look at the betrayal on Chompy’s sweet round face while he gets stabbed in the arm. He can’t do that to him! Chompy might never trust him again! Some part of him in the back of his mind tells him </span>
  <em>
    <span>Calm down, this isn’t as bad as you think it is.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The other part of his mind is reeling between images of another little turtle that had gotten too close to mutagen, and the bloodshed that followed. They’d been so close to getting torn to pieces, and it was all because of a mistake he should have seen coming. Anyone could tell you that venting every frustration about your siblings to someone constantly for years doesn’t exactly build a good image of them in their mind. It’s no wonder Slash went off the rocker.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t going to let it happen again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Raph repeats, placing Chompy on the chair behind him and sticking himself in between the two. A lunge from Donnie just to get a sample wasn’t going to happen, but then again, he didn’t think that his best friend would turn into a monster either, so covering all of the possibilities is perfectly warranted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph…” The fatigue is back in Donnie’s face. Moreso on the verge of exasperation, when one of his brothers isn’t seeing his side of the argument. An expression that frequently comes along these days. “Look, it’s not going to hurt him. And it’s not like the mutagen mixed with a few cells is going to make a whole second alien tortoise. Besides, this amount of mutagen isn’t powerful enough to--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donnie lifts the vial he’d picked up from the table into view. A few milliliters of mutagen sit in the bottom, glowing its strange blue-green hue against olive scales, turning them a sickly teal that makes Raph’s belly churn.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smacks it away before his head registers what his hand is doing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Glass shatters onto the floor as the vial bursts on impact with the desk, droplets of ooze splattering over the already scarred counter. The small flame from the burner greedily takes in whatever flies at it and before either of the brothers can react, the instrument follows the vial’s example and explodes, sending smoke and shrapnel pouring over the lab. Donnie’s hand vanishes into the smoke with a yelp. The sound of scrambling and curses come from his brother’s direction, and the hiss of a gas valve turning off. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Chikushō-- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Raphael? Raph, are you alright..?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The query barely reaches his ears. The ringing that’s started up is drowning out all other sounds, and the pain that’s beginning to blossom from his already injured hand isn’t helping. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Idiot.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Hitting a glass vial with a cut, that always ends well, such a great idea-- damn it. Raphael clutches his injured hand to his chest as the burning gets worse, crouching and curling himself around it as if the physical barrier would make it stop hurting. Definitely making sure he puts his stupid sharp objects away before going thrashing around in a nightmare from now on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s not dying down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph, wh-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>ow</span>
  </em>
  <span>-- sorry, Chompy.” Delighted squeaks come from somewhere on his right. The chair hits the floor with a clunk, though Chompy’s trills continue. Good. Donnie found Chompy. They’re safe. Now he just needs to stand up and grab him and get the fire extinguisher and get out of the lab and </span>
  <em>
    <span>why won’t his hand stop burning?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Visibility is already low enough, but Raph pulls his hand away from his chest to try and look. Maybe he’s got glass in it, or a piece of the burner--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Agony flashes from his hand to the rest of his body in one swift motion. Every muscle seizes and something ripples through his bones, dragging a cry from his throat as his vision goes white.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Gonna Leave A Mark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>All he can make out for the first second or two are his own hands in front of him, lunging to turn off the valve without really needing to think about it. Explosions are a frequent issue in this lab, though usually it’s his own doing and not always due to his brother’s intervention. Donnie lets go of a flurry of coughs as he pushes himself away from the smoking desk, shaking his head. He’d clean it all up later on; for now he just needs to put out the fire and get Raphael and Chompy out of the lab. Who knows what kind of trouble breathing mutagen smoke will do?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How could he not have seen that coming? Of course Raph was going to react. Of course he was going to make some movement, he should have known not to wave it in his face. Should have realized the instant that Raphael turned uncooperative, pushing the issue would not have ended in any positive fashion. Apologies will come later and he’ll have to figure out how to test an alien sample some other way. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donatello tries to wave some of the smoke out of his face, his chest trying to clear it out with wracking coughs. Ugh, this is painful. He’ll be fine, he knows that, but they have to get to clear air first. Where the hell is his brother?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ </span>
  <em>
    <span>Chikushō-- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Raphael? Raph, are you alright?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lack of an answer just makes the initial panic from the accident worse. Raph wasn’t very far, he should be right here. Maybe he jumped back when the burner blew. Donnie takes a few steps forward, his hand reaching through the haze to try and find any sign of the hothead. Hopefully not unconscious on the floor, but that’s better than nothing. And Chompy -- stars, he’d better be okay, or he’s never going to be able to forgive himself in the five seconds he survives before Raphael murders him. He couldn’t bear being responsible for something like that. Even if Raph </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> hurt (which he probably isn’t. Donnie will keep telling himself that until he believes it.), it wouldn’t matter one bit until Chompy is safe and sound.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the very, very low chance that Raphael is actually injured, it will be much easier to convince him to accept help if Chompy is already taken care of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph, wh-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>ow</span>
  </em>
  <span>--” Alright, so finding Chompy was easier than expected. Donnie yanks his hand back from the space tortoise’s shell, having just prodded himself on it. Oh, thank goodness. Donnie shakes his hand out and then reaches down again to pull Chompy up into his arms, holding him close to his chest. “Sorry, Chompy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By the excited trilling and all of the high pitched conversation Chompy is giving back to him, he doesn’t seem to mind. This is probably more familiar to Chompy than they all expect - he did live on a lava planet and his mother is an intergalactic fire kaiju. Smoke and fire is basically Chompy’s first home, and he isn’t the least bit bothered by it as far as Donnie can tell. Giving him a little scratch under the chin, Donnie moves forward again, and immediately slams into the chair and knocks it down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, jeez -- ugh.” He’ll have to fix that wheel later. Okay, Chompy is taken care of, he’s nestling right into his plastron which is making it really hard to reach around and feel for the desk again--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The screech that breaks the eerie quiet of the lab nearly breaks his eardrums with it, and his grip on Chompy. Scrambling to catch the little guy again, Donnie clutches him to his chest, eyes wide. That sounded like Raph. He’s not feeling around anymore, and just rushes for the sound, worry just rising with the smoke as the cry fades into growling. A deep, throaty growl that sounds like it should be coming out of a movie screen instead of his lab. That… no longer sounds like Raph. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donnie’s already too close to obey that little cautious voice in the back of his mind, searching around the smoke for his brother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph!?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chompy squeaks indignantly as his ride stops dead in his tracks, and the grip around him tightens. This is where the yell had come from, and he can still hear the grumbling a few feet away from him, but all Donnie can focus on is the massive clawed hand that has slammed itself onto the floor in front of him. All words vanish from his tongue as his eyes follow the arm up to whatever else is attached, and for a six foot tall turtle, he suddenly feels very, very small.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The hand is still three-fingered and green, vaguely familiar in its frame. But the similarity stops there. Hooked claws extend from fingertips, not unlike those of a cat. Green scales mottle with a purple hue as they travel up the arm, some of them having grown to a point. The scutes of his shell have done the same, coming up into a spiked armor that covers his back in a deadly dare for an attack. A row of them has erupted from his spine down his lengthened tail, thick and blunt, and Donnie can already see that it’s going to be awfully difficult piercing into the skin beneath. Another growl draws his attention back up to the face, where he finds himself meeting bared fangs, green eyes that don’t seem to recognize him, and a torn red mask that sinks to the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He must have been hit. This beast of a turtle that’s twice his height is standing in the place of his brother and the smoke clears away to give Donatello a full view. His weight has shifted top-heavy, bringing him onto all fours. Even his face; there’s barely any of the familiar angles in it. Instead, it seems like his lips have come to some sort of half-fleshy beak, with little barbs going from his nostrils up and around his eyes, growing in size until they join with the rest of the spikes around the back of his skull and down his neck. Some childish piece of Donnie giggles the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>dinosaur</span>
  </em>
  <span> into his head, but that’s quickly dragged away by the fear building in his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“..Raphael?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Being afraid of one of his siblings isn’t a habitual feeling, and certainly not one he wants clouding his thoughts now. Moments of anger from Raph are normal, and expected, and he’s never really been worried about him acting violently towards them on it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Though… it’s quite different when Raph has turned into a bloody giant monster, and the trauma of the mutation hasn’t worn off enough for him to recognize anything around. This is a beast that is staring Donatello down with only instincts to act on, so while he’s frozen in place due to his own distress, he’s just going to pray to whatever higher power there is that he doesn’t have the appearance of a threat. He doesn’t believe in anything of the sort, but man, if there is anything up there, he could really use a hand to not be torn to pieces by his big brother before he can get through to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Said beast suddenly blinks and shifts his gaze downwards to his hands. Big, clawed, digging gouges into the floor like it’s made of foam. The jerk that goes through Raph’s mutated body is what urges Donnie to move, seeing a dozen different emotions flicker over the spined face in a split second, before settling on horror. Don knows what’s going to happen a nanosecond before it does, and he leaps into a roll with Chompy against his chest just fast enough to avoid Raph’s claws coming off of the floor. The roar that comes from his brother’s lungs seems to reach into his chest and constrict his own. Donnie gasps as the vibrations hit him, and he pushes Chompy under a table in time to jump into his next roll.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph’s claws slam into the floor just behind him. Donatello’s never been more grateful for his brother’s bulky weight to slow him down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Raph, stop, it’s me!” Donnie yells, kicking off of the floor and flipping onto the top of his ruined desk. He’d seen the flurry that went over Raph’s face. That split second, that genuine terror that he’s only ever caught a few times. And when Raph is scared, he turns it into anger, and that anger is going to chase him around his lab until he can get it under control. “Chill out, man, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>me!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gets a bellow in response. Raph doesn’t seem to be outright going after him; he’s started examining his own new form in a growing panic, trying to see everything and see what had happened to him. All of his gear is in tatters on the floor, save for some scraps of his mask that have tangled themselves in the spines on the back of Raph’s head. He doesn’t seem to notice. At least he seems like he’s mostly in the normal state of mind now, if he’s freaking out. Freaking out is a good sign.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until it’s redirected back at him. Donnie squeaks, backstepping out of the way of another swipe. He’s the only thing moving around in the lab right now, and that makes for a pretty good target. The only other thing shifting are the chains he’s got off to the side, swaying with the bumps and vibrations from all of the movement on the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The chains. They won’t hold Raph by any means, but they’re still hanging from the ceiling from when he was lifting the buggies up to do some repairs. And they’re good enough to hold Donnie’s weight. If he can get to the rafters, he can get clear of the lab and get some help to get Raph to calm down. The genius lunges for the metal, his hand closing around one in mid-air with another shriek from Raph. The sensation of falling only stays for a moment until his weight catches up with his momentum, and then Donnie is climbing that chain as fast as his lanky body can take him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nothing seems to be coming up behind. That’s odd, Raph was just behind him a second ago.It takes a massive crash and the screech of warping metal to figure out why.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chain getaway made obsolete, Donnie stops, hanging from the ceiling as he scans the room. He lets himself fall this time, landing deftly on his toes. Heart is racing, trying to catch up with the rest of him while he shakes. This is really bad, and by the look of the mutant sized hole in the garage door, it just got worse. The garage is an open area to the sewers, and from the sewers to the surface, and Raph knows how to get anywhere from there. Defeat makes Donnie’s shoulders slump.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph is loose in the sewers. He could be anywhere. He could be going anywhere.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chompy toddles his way out from beneath the table once the coast is clear. He squeaks and bumps his head against Donnie’s foot, chittering at him in worry. Donnie swallows the lump in his throat. This little alien was the reason this fight started, but… then again, he hadn’t been the gentlest with his explanation. Donnie groans and then reaches down to pick him up. The anxiety lessens as soon as he does, replaced with an ever growing weariness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This might as well happen.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, Chompy… guess we’re going to need to get that retromutagen done a lot faster than I thought.” Donatello sighs and sits down on the desk, shoulders slumping with the loss of adrenaline from earlier. He’s so tired, and even if he was doing good in training this morning, he just feels gross now. Sleep would be wonderful, just ignore all of his problems. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Unfortunately, that’s not an option.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donnie puts his head into his hands, takes a deep breath, and then lets it go slowly. This is a mess. This is an absolute mess that he’s going to have to clean up before anyone else knows. Maybe if he can get Raph back here before he starts fighting anyone… then things would be fine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No time to lose, then. Get to work.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Too Much</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I really could have cut this down a bit but hey, it's 3000 words and I'm happy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Running is natural. Running is the one activity he’s done most of his life without a hitch. Raph has probably ran more than most people ever will, and he may not be very fast, but he’s got endurance. He’s good enough to jump over rooftops or back kick an enemy in the face without missing a stride. It’s one of those skills that as a ninja, they don’t really think about, and sometimes really just take for granted. Running is wonderful. Running is the closest they can get to flying without some weird invention, with the wind in their faces and taking their mask tails dancing in the night behind them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Running is also horribly difficult to re-learn once you’ve tripled in size, all of your limbs are too big and your body doesn’t want to balance on two legs anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The garage door had crumpled under his weight quite easily, and Raphael took the chance to make a break for the tunnels. He needs to get away, he needs to think and figure this out but all that’s going through his head is horror and fear. It’s a nightmare again, he just needs to wake up, he just needs to open his eyes and Chompy will be sitting on his chest and the day will start over and it’ll all be fine! It would be fine. He’d wake up and he wouldn’t be a monster anymore, right?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Heavy limbs don’t really want to cooperate, and Raph stumbles over his own hands, his side slamming into the tunnel wall. Any other time he would barely have scraped off some loose rock. This time, though, the new spikes on his shell dig into the brickwork quite easily, pulling chunks of rock from the wall to tumble onto the floor beneath him. Raph’s momentum stops, but his heart doesn’t, pounding away in his chest like it’s going to break through his plastron and run off solo. A wriggle and a jerk and he pulls his shell from the wall, watching the debris scatter over the pathway. Besides the echoes of clacking rocks, the only noises are his own ragged breaths and the growing sound of his blood rushing through his ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s broken the wall as easily as he broke the vial and destroyed Donnie’s lab. All of his work, all of his progress was just set back and possibly ruined for good, not to mention the state of his desk and his burner and his chair. He’d ruined it all, burned it, broken it with a flick of his hand and now look where that had gotten him. A body too big for his own good, claws that dig into the floor, a tail that lashes and dents the concrete, teeth that feel too big in his mouth, teeth that could rip into something and tear it open effortlessly, teeth of a beast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A monster.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like his nightmare. Like Slash. He’d done this all over again, he’d ignored Donnie’s warnings, he’d let his temper get a hold of him and now Donnie might be hurt and his lab was on fire and Chompy -- who knew where Chompy was, who knew what--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s running again before he can think too much about it, pulling in tattered gasps and trying to keep his feet beneath him. The added weight pulls him forward onto his hands It’s easier to run on all fours, so Raphael digs in his claws, bunches his muscles and takes off, hoping that maybe if he runs fast enough, he might be able to leave all of this fear and pain in the tunnels behind him. The darkness of the sewer offers no guidance and no help, deaf and uncaring to the panicking beast that’s doing his best to outrun his problems. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Where he’s going doesn’t really matter, and he isn’t bothering to pay any attention to the tunnel numbers. Now that somehow his limbs have decided to cooperate, Raph is running for the hell of it, his strides eating up the distance of the sewer. Speed was something that Mikey had always taken to be the best at, and it was never one of Raph’s strongest abilities. But now, with all four feet on the ground, a spark of delight weaves itself through the drowning mess of his emotional state. Fast is good. Fast, and big, and strong… this feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He feels powerful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--y’re weak, but we’re </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>powerful</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>. Our anger makes us s--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph slams his hands - paws - front feet into the ground and skids, the pathway crunching to rubble with the force of it. He stops a few paces away from a manhole, muscles trembling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, he’s not -- he can’t be like him. This isn’t right. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--utagen warped your brain--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Be reasonable--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--don’t have any way to get us back to normal--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A wave of nausea hits him like a bus. This is crazy. This whole thing is crazy. Here he is, staring down at the floor where gigantic clawed hands are digging trenches into the concrete, and half an hour ago he was having a fun time wrestling his brothers on the floor of the dojo. A half hour and he’s turned into somehow more of a freak, a horrible mess of a mutant, with claws and teeth and spikes and a fury that’s rising in his chest like a flame. It was hard being a normal mutant teenager, and now he’s a double mutant teenager and he’s pretty sure he’s gonna throw up if he keeps thinking about it. What if he can’t turn back? Donnie said yesterday that he was stressing because he was trying to figure things out, he was the one that said he might not have a way! </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Might not have a way to turn back to normal. Their normal. If anything, Donatello pretty much confirmed that any kind of reversal would end up with them going all the way back. If they tried to fix this, it might end up so much worse. As sickening as this all was </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Raph is much more prepared to deal with this body forever than whatever the hell had started in his nightmare. He can fight in this, at least. He can run and attack and feel. Even if he isn’t able to talk. Or play games. Or read comics. Drive his bike, play drums, draw, train, plant, he wouldn’t be able to do any of that, he wouldn’t be able to be normal either way. There was no way out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Help.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He needs help. And to quit psyching himself out and think this through. The hysteria probably has something to do with the mutation. Donnie said that sometimes they’re unstable, like when Slash went berserk, or when Kirby didn’t recognize them. It was temporary, and if he just tried to breathe… Stop flipping out and calm down and focus on a plan. Get a plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Going back right now isn’t an option. The lab is on fire, Leo and Mikey are probably swarming in to find their brothers and what the hell was making all of the noise. Rushing back into a hazy room with two, possibly three nerve-ridden ninjas was in no way going to end well. April wasn’t home; she was on her way to the lair, which meant that raised the number of ninjas in the room to four, and this one has psychic abilities. Not a good combo. They’d probably attack before he got a chance to get their recognition, and that would cause a bigger mess than he’s prepared to deal with. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not to mention the possible aftermath.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So who? The Mutanimals were a possible answer, but the idea of facing Slash right now sends chills down his spine. Of course Slash has since come around after the mutation, and they’re still friends, and he’s a strong ally but everything about this is too close. Not ready to deal with that. Murakami wouldn’t be able to see who he is, and with the gurgly rumbles that come from his throat, he wouldn’t be able to tell him. The last thing the old man needs is to have some hulking monster break through his front door and roar at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A screech of tires comes from the street above and Raph snaps his head up, tilting it slightly to take in the light coming through the holes of the manhole cover. Rapidfire cursing follows the sound, and then fades into the distance, but it’s enough to slam the obvious solution into his head. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Casey was cool with all the monster stuff. He attacked criminals before they’d even met. Barely fazed him the first time he’d seen Raph, so a second time round should be easy. It wasn’t any crazier than what they’d seen in space. Casey handled himself fine, and he might have some weird out of the box solution to this that Raph wouldn’t think of. And bonus: Casey can text his brothers and explain that he’s not a crazy feral beast and that everything is cool. Yeah. That sounded like a good enough plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph closes his eyes and sighs, trying to push the tension out with his breath. He has a plan. No need to keep overreacting. Shaking the gravel from his feet, Raph turns away from the manhole and heads further down the tunnel. He won’t fit through that manhole now, but that’s fine. Donnie’s got a secret exit not far from Casey’s place. Once he gets topside and gets to Casey’s place, he should be able to get onto the fire escape and knock on his window. It’s late enough, he shouldn’t be at hockey practice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Should be fine, right?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So very wrong. Really, how did he not see this coming? If a strange nasty looking mutant came up to his bedroom after dark with no greeting, he’d probably freak out too. So he can’t really blame Casey for his reaction, as annoying as it is. The hope of rolling with it vanished quite fast after Raph poked his head into Casey’s window. Instead of the idiot being enamored with how badass he looked with spikes and fangs and asking a bunch of stupid questions, he got screaming and a hockey stick to the face. With all of the new hardened scales, it didn’t really hurt, but it did throw his foolproof plan for a loop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph jerks his head back to the window with a hiss, grumbling as he reaches up with a hand to brush the splinters off. He managed to climb the side of the apartment building without much trouble (who knew gigantic claws made great shuko spikes) and pulled himself onto Casey’s fire escape, where he’s now seated on his haunches. His tail is getting awfully annoying. It keeps banging into things, and the poor railing on this flimsy thing was already a dented mess. Giving his head a firm shake, Raph scowls, glaring back into the dimly-lit bedroom to his best friend cowering against the wall with a baseball bat extended in front of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“G-Get away! Get out, mutant freak!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ugh. Rude. Now that all of the neurotic after effects of the mutation seem to have calmed down, he’s able to think straight. Straight enough to be incredibly annoyed with the boy’s reaction. Honestly, if he was here to hurt him, he would have done it by now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph opens his mouth to snap a </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Calm down, dumbass’</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him, but all that comes out is this growl that really sounds like it shouldn’t be coming from him. A bear maybe. Or a really angry tiger. Prehistoric is a good word to describe it; if career paths were open, making dinosaur sounds for movies would be his go-to. Another try and another weird gurgle, so Raph ends up letting out a snarl filled with frustration instead. Can’t run right, and still can’t talk. Turtle luck at it’s finest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fine. If he can’t tell Casey Jones, then he’ll just have to show him and make him figure it out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If only he could fit in the window. Hm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, there would be one way to get Casey to go with him. Probably won’t like it. Worth a shot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph shifts back to the window and sticks an arm through, then his head. He can really only get this far, but he doesn’t need to get fully inside anyway. Doing his best to keep his strike gentle just in case he does hit his friend by accident, Raph swipes at him, hiss coming up his throat. Come on, Case, come on…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yes! </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Casey takes the bait and yells, giving a swing at the intruder’s hand. What he gets instead is Raph grabbing the bat, jerking it towards him and out of his hands, and then snagging Casey’s hoodie with his claws. Raph catches a brief look of panic in Casey’s eyes before he yanks him back to the window and literally drags the teen kicking and screaming from his bedroom. God, you’d think he’d never been kidnapped before--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stars fly through his vision as Casey’s hand connects with his snout, electricity slamming into his body. All grip on the kid vanishes in an instant. Jones hits the floor of the fire escape and Raph snaps his head back, furiously rubbing at his poor snout with garbled whines. The fucker tazed him! Casey’s climbing back onto his feet, looking pretty pleased with himself and giving a fist pump into the air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hah! Eat that! Nobody steals Casey Jones from his house -- oh shit--!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now he’s pissed. Raph shrieks and darts at him, his jaws closing around the back of Casey’s sweater and swinging him into the air. How </span>
  <em>
    <span>dare</span>
  </em>
  <span> he shock him with his stupid homemade tazer gauntlet! He should know better than that, that thing hurts!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without really thinking about it, Raph plants his feet and shakes Casey akin to a dog shaking a toy, just without the intent to destroy it. There’s something slightly satisfying about the way Casey screams, five fingered hands scrabbling to hold onto his face so he isn’t dropped off the edge of the fire escape. Payback is a bitch. Show you to be rude, hitting him with wooden things and shocking him in his poor nose. Pausing to let go of an offended huff, Raph glances back to the window. Casey’s gonna take a moment to fight past the dizziness, but he’ll still need something if they run into trouble--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the hell is going on out there--?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A window somewhere below them slides open, and years of stealth training send him into autopilot. Raph grabs Casey’s stick bag with his tail and launches himself at the wall above while the kid is still dazed. No time to wait now, he needs to get up here before he’s seen. There’s a bit of scrambling due to the extra weight of his friend and his weapons, but Raphael manages to heave himself up onto the rooftop and whisk out of sight just as the human leans out of the window below. He doesn’t dare move for a second or two, frozen in a crouch as he listens to the confused and sleepy muttering from below, and then the slide of the window closing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally. He can breathe. Well, this is as far as his plan went. Raph sets his friend down on the rooftop and plants the goalie bag beside him, glancing back over his shoulder in case someone was really following them up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bat hits him square in the jaw. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. Right. Should have been watching Casey.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raph stumbles back a step, head reeling from the blow. That is definitely more solid than the hockey stick, and now that he’s got room to actually move, Casey’s put his whole weight into the swing. It’s got a significant amount of force behind it, enough to disorient the turtle for a second or two. Enough time for Casey to get a second swing in that connects with his shoulder instead. It’s not powerful enough to hurt him really, but buys him the time he needs to put his mask on and swing the bag over his shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve messed with the wrong guy, Spikey!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something snaps in him when he hears that. His nose hurts, his face hurts, he’s pissed off and now he’s got weird feelings coming up that he didn’t want to deal with. Raph shifts his weight into a better stance, lip curling back over his teeth and green eyes narrowing as soon as they lock onto Casey’s. That burning sensation starts again, deep in his gut, but it’s different. Nostrils flare with a breath, and then another, and Raph pulls his head back before he even realizes what he’s doing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a split second when realization comes over Casey’s face and his mouth twists to start saying his name, but the next is covered in flame.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fire bursts from Raph’s jaws with a roar. Oh, right. Chompy’s DNA. The whole fire space tortoise thing. Fire is part of that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s kind of cool.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A shift of his head at the last second sends the flames just past Casey instead of at him. He doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to burn his best friend into a crisp, but on top of the frustration of burning his brother’s lab, being stupid enough to get into this mess in the first place and now getting smacked in the face, Raph’s temper is shot. The blood rushes in his ears as he pulls in a few ragged breaths, and it barely registers anymore when Casey gives a yelp, drops his now burning bat, and bolts for the other side of the rooftop. His patience gives and he rears up to his full height, teetering there for a moment while the human flees. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Raphael slams his front feet into the grainy rooftop, feeling it crack beneath his pads, and lets a roar break the night with all of the pent up emotion. A shake of his head and another shriek and he breaks into a run in the vigilante’s wake. The kid is already on the next roof, running for dear life, and takes one look over his shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of his name barely reaches his ears before he launches himself after him.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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